Page 3 of The Duke Decides

Begun as a charitable function of the Minerva Society, a secret society of powerful British women who wished to use their influence for good, the Hospital had housed countless women and orphans who came through its doors despairing and destitute and left to find a secure place in the world where their skills could be of use and their future bright.

For a hundred and fifty years, the Hospital, its staff of Sisters, and the tenants to which it ministered had thrived under the guidance and guardianship of a wise, sensible Matron who acted as mother to them all. With the help of powerful patronesses and a steady infusion of financial support, the Hospital had saved hundreds of lives and eased the last days of dozens of others whose time in the world was destined to be short.

It could not come crumbling down on Louisa’s watch. It could not.

Besides being a venerable and respected institution, the Hospital was the only true home Louisa Bickford had ever known. Unless she could find help, she would see that home disappear into the hands of a grubby blackmailer.

She gave a wide berth to Kent House, their nearest neighbor. The house originally built by the Duke of Strathern and Kent to house his mistress had been sold years ago, and Louisa had not gained a favorable impression of the current tenant. She kept to the footpaths through the gardens, staying behind the high hedge so she wouldn’t be spotted.

In her former life, Louisa would have driven up to Rutland House on the half-circular drive that lay off the High Road, which formed the southern boundary of Hyde Park. She would have had a groom and at least two footmen to hand her down from a carriage drawn by no less than four horses, and she would have had a maid, a chaperone, and at least one aunt or sister in her train.

Now she walked dirt footpaths in her plain bonnet and shawl, and instead of having the porter open the grand double doors of the front porch for her, she scratched at the servant’s door and walked down the hall past the stores and scullery until she reached the enormous kitchens and their perpetual fire.

After she enjoyed a chat with the cook, housekeeper, and more than one maid who had once had a home at the Benevolence Hospital, the butler showed Louisa to the small, sunny parlor where the Dowager Duchess of Rutland liked to receive her callers. Lady Mary had in her day been an admired beauty, celebrated hostess, and feared political patroness. Now, at the age of four-and-seventy, she had passed the mantle of society beauty and wit to younger generations, but she still retained her formidable intelligence. Louisa was two score years younger, but her regular visits, for the Duchess was a generous patroness of the Hospital, had made them friends.

The Duchess wore a delicate black shawl of Chantilly lace in mourning for her daughter who had died the previous year, but she had buried her grief in preparation for the forthcoming marriages of two of her granddaughters, offspring of the current Duke. As the Dowager and family matriarch, it fell upon her to see the girls bestowed upon worthy men, something their mother had not lived long enough to accomplish. The daughter of a duke herself, the Dowager Duchess had much to teach her granddaughters about how to go on. She made no secret of her pleasure at having procured the son of a baron for Emmeline and—a worthy accomplishment—the heir to a marquess for Katherine. Both girls sat in the parlor with her, occupied at suitably dainty tasks.

Louisa curled her calloused fingers in her cotton gloves and made a deep curtsy. “I’ve any number of girls at the Hospital waiting to hear details of your wedding trousseau, Lady Katherine,” she said after being properly announced.

“You ought to see her wedding gown!” Emmeline exclaimed. “It’s to be all overlaid in blonde lace. Heaps of it. Smuggled in from Caen, I don’t doubt.”

The Duchess studied Louisa’s face, her eyes narrowing as she detected distress. “Girls, run fetch the sleeves from Katherine’s room so you might show Louisa.”

A maid could have run the errand, but both young women knew when their grandmother was dispatching them for a private tête-à-tête. They left the room without quarrel, and the Duchess raised a waiting brow.

“He’s contacted you again.”

Louisa sighed. “Am I so transparent?”

“I know the ways of blackmailers. Toadeaters, hangers-on, and sycophants—I know all their little tricks.” The Duchess beckoned Louisa to take a seat in the chair beside her chaise. “You paid him the first time, against my advice, didn’t you?”

A small whimper escaped Louisa despite herself. She noted from ingrained habit that the Duchess’s morning gown was made of silk and cut in the latest fashion, with bouffant sleeves and a wasp-pointed waist. Louisa’s printed cotton day gown was sadly out of date. A responsible Matron did not apportion herself an allowance beyond what was strictly necessary for maintaining a creditable appearance.

Were she still married, Louisa would be dressing like the Duchess.

Or she would be dead at her husband’s hands. Instead of the other way around.

“I said you must never pay a blackmailer what they demand,” the Duchess said with a tsk. “He will always come back for more.”

“And he has.” Louisa passed her the letter.

The Duchess read. “Who are your enemies, my dear?”

“None that I can think of. As Matron of the Hospital, I cultivate a wide acquaintance, and I do my best to keep on good terms with all. One never knows who I might need to call upon for patronage, for a placement, or support for a Sister who has decided to make her way in the world.”

The Sisters took no formal vows beyond an agreement to uphold the principles of the Order of Benevolence, which had been established Louisa didn’t know how long ago. A lay order from the mists of medieval times, before the Reformation, the legends went.

The Duchess lowered her chin and looked at Louisa with a shrewd gaze that had lost nothing with age. “And in your past life? The one to which your correspondent alludes?”

Louisa pushed down the lump that lodged in her throat like a burning coal. “Many,” she managed. Enemies beyond count.

But someone who knew what she’d done—someone she’d wronged—that person would come after her with a sword, not a bargain for her continued silence. They would want her sins bared to the world, her crimes pulled out into the cold, unforgiving light of truth. They would want her on her knees before the executioner.

It was no less than what she deserved.

The Duchess tapped the letter against her palm. “Would you tell me, if I asked?”

Louisa surveyed the spacious parlor, built to airy neoclassical proportions and furnished in the epitome of elegance and taste. The window hangings were silk damask, the wall papers were a subtle pattern of gold shells and vines, and the furniture came from the best craftsmen in England and France. Showpieces stood around the room: a tall Chinese vase filling one corner, a settee with vaguely Moorish motifs, sconces that might have hung on the walls of a Middle Eastern prince. All signs of wealth and status that could mask a great hollowness in a home where there was no love, no communion of spirits.